Daddy Long Legs

However--we will draw a veil over that and begin again.

I've been writing and writing this summer; four short stories finished

and sent to four different magazines. So you see I'm trying to be an

author. I have a workroom fixed in a corner of the attic where Master

Jervie used to have his rainy-day playroom. It's in a cool, breezy

corner with two dormer windows, and shaded by a maple tree with a

family of red squirrels living in a hole.

I'll write a nicer letter in a few days and tell you all the farm news.

We need rain.

Yours as ever,

Judy

10th August

Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs,

SIR: I address you from the second crotch in the willow tree by the

pool in the pasture. There's a frog croaking underneath, a locust

singing overhead and two little 'devil downheads' darting up and down

the trunk. I've been here for an hour; it's a very comfortable crotch,

especially after being upholstered with two sofa cushions. I came up

with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've

been having a dreadful time with my heroine--I CAN'T make her behave as

I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am

writing to you. (Not much relief though, for I can't make you behave

as I want you to, either.) If you are in that dreadful New York, I wish I could send you some of

this lovely, breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is Heaven after a

week of rain.

Speaking of Heaven--do you remember Mr. Kellogg that I told you about

last summer?--the minister of the little white church at the Corners.

Well, the poor old soul is dead--last winter of pneumonia. I went half

a dozen times to hear him preach and got very well acquainted with his

theology. He believed to the end exactly the same things he started

with. It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for

forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a

cabinet as a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying his harp and golden

crown; he was so perfectly sure of finding them! There's a new young

man, very consequential, in his place. The congregation is pretty

dubious, especially the faction led by Deacon Cummings. It looks as

though there was going to be an awful split in the church. We don't

care for innovations in religion in this neighbourhood.

During our week of rain I sat up in the attic and had an orgy of

reading--Stevenson, mostly. He himself is more entertaining than any

of the characters in his books; I dare say he made himself into the

kind of hero that would look well in print. Don't you think it was

perfect of him to spend all the ten thousand dollars his father left,

for a yacht, and go sailing off to the South Seas? He lived up to his

adventurous creed. If my father had left me ten thousand dollars, I'd

do it, too. The thought of Vailima makes me wild. I want to see the

tropics. I want to see the whole world. I am going to be a great

author, or artist, or actress, or playwright--or whatever sort of a

great person I turn out to be. I have a terrible wanderthirst; the

very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella

and start. 'I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the

South.' Thursday evening at twilight,

sitting on the doorstep.